How do you plan a child’s funeral?

12Jun

Let me start by stating the obvious: No one wants to talk, read, or think about a topic like planning a child’s funeral. But this blog is all about addressing the unthinkable, and that’s what I’m writing about today. So, how did we do it? How do you design an event to commemorate your worst fear? The first thing we did was eliminate the word “funeral.” Instead we called it a Celebration of Life. That was 3 months ago today.

As I think back on that day, exactly 3 months ago, I remember that the feelings of love and support were overwhelming (in a good way). Hundreds of people came. Family, friends, clients, acquaintances, and total strangers from Minnesota — plus family and friends flew in from California, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, and Colorado. One of John’s best friends even used a year’s worth of vacation days to drive up from Kentucky. The event itself was exactly what we wanted it to be.

We were comforted by positive feedback from the guests as well. Last week I had lunch with a friend who attended Julian’s Celebration, and she also had recently attended a funeral for her cousin’s son. She shared with me some of the differences between the two services: Julian’s Celebration was uplifting and healing for her, the other one was painful. Julian’s service made her feel as if she knew who Julian was (even though she had only met him a couple of times), the other service didn’t reveal much about who the child was.

My friend encouraged me to share some details about Julian’s Celebration so other bereaved parents, like her cousin, might find inspiration and assistance when they have to do the impossible: plan their own child’s funeral. I’ve been wanting to capture some of those memories anyway, so I started thinking about it.

Let me start by telling you a few things my husband and I did NOT do:

We didn’t call it a funeral. Right from the beginning, we called it his Celebration of Life. “The Celebration” for short.

We didn’t rush into it. Some people follow a specific schedule for the events surrounding a death, based on their religious beliefs and family traditions. We didn’t feel obligated to follow any specific schedule, so we took our time and planned the event for the date that felt right to us: his 4th birthday. It was nine days after his death.

We didn’t have an open casket. In fact, we didn’t have a casket at all. We had him cremated, but didn’t have the ashes at the ceremony. I agree with C.S. Louis when he said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” Julian’s body was the container for his Soul, and he didn’t need it anymore. It didn’t need to play a role in the Celebration, in any form.

We didn’t let anyone take over. At the time of the planning process, we were surrounded by people who wanted to help us any way they could. It would have been easy to find some sort of template or find someone to plan the funeral on our behalf, and in many ways would have been easier. But nothing was easy in those first days. Everything was hard. Given the choice between not-easy Celebration planning, or not-easy anything else, I chose to focus on the planning. And I’m glad I did, because the things that initially seemed hard ended up being surprisingly therapeutic.

And now for the things my husband and I DID do:

We were inspired by a Dr. Seuss quote. Someday* I’ll write more about how the quote presented itself to me in the first place, but the short story is that I came across a quote that said, “Don’t cry because it’s over… Smile because it happened.” The fact that it was a quote from Dr. Seuss made it even more perfect, and we decided to make it the theme of the Celebration. Not because we didn’t believe that crying is an important part of processing emotions, but because we wanted the Celebration itself to be focused on what a wonderful gift he was to us. We wanted to remember his life, and we wanted to smile.*NOTE: I wrote more about this in a later blog post.

We designed the experience. John and I both have a background in design, and our business is focused on designing experiences. Even though each element took effort, I was grateful for the opportunity to apply the skills and strengths that I have as a creative professional to design the details of the event. Everything I created — posters, program, slideshow, and a keepsake photo we gave the guests — was designed with common elements: the Dr. Seuss quote, the little spaceman illustration from the pajamas he was given in the hospital, and the color red (Julian’s favorite color).

We asked people to wear red. We wanted the event to be lively and celebratory. It was so perfect that Julian’s favorite color was red (despite the fact that by the age of 3, almost all boys will tell you their favorite color is blue). The whole church was a sea of red, because in every announcement of the event we included this sentence: “Guests are encouraged to wear red, Julian’s favorite color.” What didn’t need to be said was, “Don’t wear black.”

We used music throughout the service. Overall, the music was amazing. We stayed away from sad, melancholy songs (perhaps with the exception of the song I chose for the photo slideshow — a track from Julian’s favorite CD of lullabies). The musical highlight was a song written and performed by Molly Dean Anderson, who also lead us all in singing “Happy Birthday” at the end of the service.

We chose speakers who knew and loved Julian, starting with my husband. When John announced that he wanted to speak at the Celebration, I tried to talk him out of it. But it was important to him, and he wrote a beautiful message. When it came time to share his message, he had Oscar join him as he spoke about bravery and what it means to be a hero. My two brothers and John’s sister also shared touching, beautiful messages about Julian.

We really, truly celebrated his life. The Celebration was held in a church, but the service was intentionally non-churchy. It was important to us that the Celebration was focused on our son, not on religious tradition. In addition to Julian’s dad, uncles, and aunt, we asked two long-time family friends to participate in the service. First, Georgann Fuller offered beautiful words of wisdom from her own experience of losing her husband many years ago, and she read a poem that has become deeply meaningful to me. Later, the “sermon” part of the service (the Meditation) was delivered by Don Portwood, who has known me since I was young, officiated our wedding, was with us at the hospital as Julian went in for surgery the day after his diagnosis, and was at the hospital with us the day Julian died. Don included a poem by Rumi in his meditation, and it was perfect. Everyone who participated in the service was clearly filled with love for Julian and our whole family. The service was truly a “Celebration of Life.”

Planning an event to honor a child’s death is not something anyone ever wants to do. And it’s certainly not anything anyone wants to be good at. But I followed my instincts, and found solace in the “work” of it. I wanted the event to be focused on sweet Julian’s short life, but also on love and gratitude for life in general. It was exactly what we wanted. And I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

And now for some special thanks:

Don Portwood — for delivering the perfect message in the service, and for being so much more than a friend-slash-pastor.

John, Dan, Alex, and Jennifer — for so eloquently writing and speaking about their memories of Julian.

Georgann Fuller — for traveling from California and contributing such a wise and important message of survival and love.

Molly Dean Anderson — for writing a song specifically for the event, and performing it like an angel (and the other songs, too).

Jeff Lindsay, Anne-Marie Finsaas, and all at Colonial Church of Edina — for your contributions to the service, and providing such a beautiful and welcoming environment for the event.

Emily, a beautiful story of love and gifts…a gift to me as I had written each day to Julian and was heart broken as he soared on past us to another sweet journey. Thanks for sharing Julian with me and your own personal journey of many tomorrows. With love, Darlene

Today, a business associate needed a referral to a ‘great’ web design firm. Yours was the first one to come to mind. Of course, I misplaced your business card and went online to do a quick search for your phone number. While there, I came upon Julian’s obituary. First, Dan, Quinn & I are deeply saddened by this news. We are heartbroken for you and sorry we didn’t know sooner. Secondly, I am saddened that I have let so much time go by without contact. No great story there, just life. And, I guess it doesn’t help that I’ve deactivated my Facebook account and don’t ‘Twitter’ (or is it ‘Tweet’).

I spent an hour reading your entire CaringBridge journal, parts of your blog and weeping. Your strength and clarity is amazing. Such a beautiful tribute and story which will undoubtedly help other families.

We have made a donation to Children’s Cancer Research Fund in Julian’s name. Please know you are in our thoughts and prayers and we hope to see you again one day.

First of all I would like to say I’m deeply sorry for your loss and want to thank you for sharing this beautiful post and helping others who are lost in this situation. I am going through some rough times due to my twins babies being really sick and in last two years i have been told more than 5 times that they will not make it for long but some how they have survived this far, but now things are really bad and no matter how much I want to believe they will make it i know the truth. My son has fone through over 4 surgeries in this short life and more are schedule for future. It breaks my heart to think about planning for there funeral, I want to talk to my friends about this but dont have courage but reading this post gave me some courage and peace that there others who go through this beside me. thank you so much.

My niece just passed away yesterday at 16 months, believed to be SIDS, and I have been helping plan the funeral. It has been so sad but your story cheers me up. Thank you. I think we will use that Dr. Suess quote.

Thank you so much for your blog. I am helping my sister plan the celebration of her two year old son. I find your entire blog inspiring, especially this post as we try to plan a meaningful, healing celebration for him. Can I ask what music/songs you used? I am trying to find that balance of songs that aren’t depressing but still touching. Thank you for any help and thank you again for your blog.

I’m so sorry to hear about your nephew, and I’m glad my blog was helpful to you. Music was a big part of my son’s celebration, and we were blessed to have a very gifted singer actually write a song just for the event. She also sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which was very touching, and might be a good fit for your nephew as well. We also had a pre-recorded lullaby as a soundtrack to a slide show of photos.

Best of luck to you as you help your sister through this difficult time. My thoughts are with both of you.

Ironically I am reading this one month after my 12 year old daughter’s funeral. We used all of these elements and it was a beautiful celebration to honor a life lived well and fully. I applaud you and all the other parents who have had to do this. It does take an enormous amount of strength and courage but just as we gave all of ourselves to raising and caring for them when they were with us, we equally give our energies to celebrate them at the end. I hope other parents can use this and find the support and energy that comes from being able to lift your child up for all to see and have a community echo what you have seen and known about your child.

I am currently planning the memorial service for my beautiful, perfect 5 month old Sophia Elizabeth who died 18 days ago, and I cant tell you how much this means to me. I am shamelessly stealing so much of this, including the Dr.Seuss quote… which is so perfect, cause my baby shower was dr.seuss themed. Since she was only 5 months old, she didnt have a favorite color or anything, and I’m so lost, but this post and your blog is so uplifting… that im not alone.

Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I’m glad my experience inspires you, and I welcome you to “steal” anything you like. I’m honored that a little piece of my experience will be carried forward in your experience. My best to you as you move forward in your journey…